Reborn Collaboration 2018
Reborn
Labour heralds new beginnings
in whose exhaustion
death throes
become life throes
Arrival blossoms
across pure white sheets
in a carnival of scars
that is your awakening
(Alison R)
The "Linen Biennale Northern Ireland" Festival celebrates the past, present and future landscape of linen. Held every two years, it is presented and hosted by multiple venues across Northern Ireland and aims to stimulate new thinking about Ireland's oldest textile products, flax and linen. Forming a bridge bridge between Northern Ireland's linen heritage and contemporary users, it gives the linen story relevance to a wide range of modern audiences locally, nationally and internationally.
Lucy Turner, a well known print artist, worked in collaboration with the "Words for Castle Ward" writers group, to which I belong, to produce an evocative installation of Shibori inspired linen panels. These hand dyed indigo panels were over-printed with geometric patterns inspired by flooring in old Irish linen workers cottages and the words of ten selected poets, myself included. The poetry was inspired by the process itself and Lucy's experience of it - the exhaustion of the labour, the fading of the indigo with each use, the precision of the process and also a letting go so that the process has a life of its own too.
The result was a breathtakingly beautiful set of panels, each unique in both colour, design and energy, which worked with and was complimented by the poetry that became a part of it.
What and experience! What a privilege!